I woke up again this morning at 4 AM, same time I woke up yesterday. I forced myself to sleep until 8 AM just to try be on a normal schedule. So unlike me to wake up so early!
I spent the day with Casey, my one friend here. He came to pick me up at my apartment and showed me how to take the tram to get to work. Amazingly, we did not take the longest possible route, as I did yesterday. Then we walked across the Yarra River and through the CBD and stopped for lunch at a greek restaurant. Dining out in Australia is different in a few ways: (1) unless there's a wait, there's no pressure to leave your table quickly because the servers aren't working for tips, (2) there's no consistency regarding the bill - it is sometimes brought to the table and other times you must stop at the cash register by the door (the latter has been more common in my experience so far), (3) the servers bring one wine bottle filled with tap water (no ice!) and rarely return to the table; however, they are extremely pleasant especially considering the fact that they aren't working for tips. Casey continued to correct my pronunciation of nearly every Australian word or street name I uttered, in addition to replacing or defining some new vocabulary (sweater/sweatshirt = jumper, round of drinks = a shout, rooting (as in for a sports team) = sleeping with someone, etc.). Important things to know.
We continued walking up to Carlton, a neighborhood just north of the CBD. Lygon Street is the main street of this neighborhood, which has the Italian concentration in Melbourne. I referred to it as Little Italy despite the fact that it is not actually called Little Italy. Semantics. It felt like the Riverwalk in that every restaurant has a host trying to hustle up business, offering free rounds of drinks, reduced prices, and "excellent" food. Most places offer outdoor seating with heat lamps. It's still lovely during the day but cools off substantially at night. Winter starts next week. There were also lots of gelato and specialty chocolate shops. Enjoyed a pasta dinner, though my penne carbonerra had interesting looking bacon in it. Supposedly it always looks a little different here - not crispy like in the U.S. - more RAW looking. Should you decide to visit, I advise against ordering bacon.
Thanks largely to Casey's help, I managed to board the correct tram and had a hassle-free trip home.
